Liquor sale question

Factual Questions
1

(In Wisconsin if it matters)
One of my employees asked me about this and I really didn’t have an answer…

You (a 25 year old) are at a restaurant with an 17 year old. You order a beer and drink it yourself, at the end of the meal the 17 year old picks up the tab. Did the waitress just sell alcohol to a minor? What if you go up to the bar and order a drink, when the bartender asks you for $3.50, the minor pays for it (again, the minor is not consuming any alcohol), is that selling alcohol to a minor? (hmmm, now that I think about this, I think the law says something about serving alcohol to someone under 21, not selling it.
Anyways, I didn’t have the answer to the question, and since we have a class A licensce, I’ve really never looked into it.

My gut instinct isn’t that it’s probably okay, but I’m thinking that it’s either technically not legal or it’s a grey area and it could go either way.

2

This website details policies for the University of Wisconsin LaCrosse team, but they point out that Wisconsin law says:

So just the selling, and not necessarily the consumption, appears to be what is illegal.

Cheers.

3

Interesting question, though I can’t imagine a minor ever actually doing this.

4

This doesn’t answer your question, but in Arkansas, at least, checkers under 21 cannot even scan a bottle of wine at the grocery store; they have to have someone of age come over and scan it for them, then can go back to checking you out. Ridiculous. I would be very surprised if a 17 year old is legally allowed to buy liquor for someone else, considering this.

5

You can imagine a 17 and 21 year old (or a 20 and 21 year old) going out for dinner and the younger one picking up the tab? It seems perfectly plausable to me.

6

In Wisconsin…
“An adult working under the immediate supervison of any of the above [someone with a licensce, an adult member of the licensee’s immediate family living in the licensee’s household, the holder of an operators licensce] does not need an operators license. NOTE: “Immidiate Supervision” means that the licensed person must be able to watch and supervise each unlicensed person’s actions. This means that the licensed person must be in the same room or area as the unlicensed person, near enough to see and talk to him or her”

So what this means is that in Wisconsin, any adult may sell alcohol as long as there is someone with a bartenders license or liquor license nearby.
Many times in the big mega stores they will still call someone over to scan liquor. I assume that they are calling someone with a liquor license to do it.